I get asked a lot where the titles in this series come from — usually because, on the surface, they sound like they belong on a Navy chart or a maintenance manual, not the cover of a love story. That's on purpose. Every title in this series is a real naval or nautical term first, and a piece of Alex and Patrick and James's emotional life second. I wanted the language of the world that tried to keep them apart to be the same language that ends up telling their story. Here's wh

A lot of readers describe this series as "military romance," and that's fair as far as it goes — there are officers, ships, uniforms, all of it. But that label always undersells what I was actually trying to do. I didn't want to write a love story that happened to be set in the military. I wanted to write a love story that could only have existed the way it did because of a specific, real, legally enforced silence — one I lived through myself. The Timeline Is Real, On Purpose

Alex, Patrick, and James get most of the attention — they're the love story, after all. But the people who hold that story up, who make the world of A City of Two feel lived-in instead of lonely, are the supporting cast. And I want to be honest about something: every one of them is real. Not composites, not archetypes borrowed from other books — real people who lived some version of this alongside me. Some of them know exactly who they are on these pages. For their privacy, t

People who've read the series long enough eventually ask me the same question, usually carefully, sometimes bluntly: is Patrick real? The honest answer is yes — mostly. Patrick is built, almost entirely, on my husband. The man I've spent twenty-plus years of my life beside, through some of the most beautiful chapters I've lived and a few of the hardest ones too. The Blueprint My husband is the most committed, unyielding compass I've ever known. He is, without exaggeration, th

Of the three men in this series, James is the one people ask me about the least — and the one I find hardest to talk about honestly. Patrick is my husband, plainly and mostly. James is different. James is built on someone I was, and in some quiet way still am, deeply in love with. Not Lightning — Something Slower and Just as True It wasn't love at first sight. Not the way it was with my husband, the kind of immediate, electric recognition that some people are lucky enough to

The Blueprint I went to the Naval Academy, learned to sail before I learned almost anything else that mattered, and spent years afterward on submarines earning my dolphins — the quiet, deliberate world of the silent service, where discipline isn't a virtue so much as a survival skill. Later I went to Harvard Law, served in the JAG Corps, and eventually gave up my commission to build a life in private practice — Washington, then New York, then California. On paper, that's a ca

Writing a novel series like A City of Two is an immersive, all-consuming process. When you spend months living inside your characters' heads—navigating their conflicts, building their emotional arcs, and tracing the tightrope they walk—the line between your reality and theirs can start to blur. Sometimes, the only way forward is to step back, shut the laptop, and let everyone breathe for a moment. Yesterday was one of those days. The San Francisco Bay put on a masterclass in

Since our last update focused on the exciting news that Book 6 (The Kinetic Anchor) is underway, I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on how far Alex Ko and Patrick McClellan have come. When The Gig Line (Book 1) first opened in the humid, high-stress atmosphere of Bancroft Hall in 1990, it was a story born out of extreme constraint. Back then, survival meant strict geometry. It meant keeping your gig line straight, your posture rigid, and your true self buried deep beneath la

After concluding the five-book journey of A City of Two, I have spent time reflecting on the path that brought me here. While that series was a deeply personal tribute to those who served in the shadows, a writer’s work is never truly done. I am excited to announce that I have officially started working on book six, The Kinetic Anchor. Love is complex, and the lives my characters lead are inherently messy. The Kinetic Anchor dives deeper into this reality, bringing back the a